Republic Day marks and celebrates the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect, January 26, 1950. The Constitution lays down its ideals in the Preamble in the very beginning. The Preamble declares India as a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic. It states our main objectives to be to secure justice, liberty, equality, and to promote fraternity. But somewhere, we hardly remember all of them. Take a look back at the main words in the Preamble and what they mean.

1. SOVEREIGN This term implies that India is neither dependent nor a dominion of any other nation but an independent state. There is no authority above it, and it is free to conduct its own affairs. Being a sovereign state, India can acquire a foreign territory or cede a part of its territory in favour of a foreign state.

2. SOCIALISM Indian socialism is 'democratic socialism' which holds faith in a 'mixed economy', where both public and private sectors co-exist. Democratic socialism aims to end poverty, ignorance, disease and inequality of opportunities.

3. SECULAR The Indian Constitution embodies the concept of secularism i.e., all religions in our country have the same status and support from the state, irrespective of their strength.

4. DEMOCRATIC Democracy means possession of supreme power by the people. The Indian Constitution provides for representative parliamentary democracy under which the executive is responsible to the legislature for all its policies and actions. Universal adult franchise, periodic elections, rule of law, independence of judiciary and no discrimination are characteristics of democracy.

5. REPUBLIC The term 'republic' in our preamble indicates that the head of the state is always elected directly or indirectly for a fixed period. India's elected head is the president, who is elected indirectly for a fixed period of five years.

6. JUSTICE The term 'justice' in the preamble embraces three distinct forms - social, economic and political; secured through various provisions of Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles. Social justice denotes the equal treatment of all citizens without any social distinction based on caste, colour, race, sex, religion.

7. LIBERTY The term 'liberty' means the absence of restraints on the activities of individuals, and at the same time providing opportunities for the development of individual personalities. The preamble secures to citizens of India liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship through fundamental rights.

8. EQUALITY The term 'equality' means the absence of special privileges to any section of the society, and the vision of adequate opportunities for all individuals without any discrimination. The preamble secures civic, political and economic equality of status and opportunity to all citizens.

9. FRATERNITY Fraternity means a sense of brotherhood. It is the fundamental duty of every citizen to promote harmony and a spirit of brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic, regional and sectional diversities. The constitution promotes the feeling of fraternity by the system of single citizenship.